i would blog right now but i am too busy being MARRIED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i'm done...

i just checked my grades online.
they're all in now and it's official.
i'm done with college.
i gotta tell you i feel sort of weird.
i spent a good five and a half years plugging away at this thing
and now it's over.
i'm done.
crazy.
i'm done.
amazing.
when i woke up this morning i could actually feel a difference.
i slept in a little longer.
on friday i walk the stage and get that piece of paper that will hang in my office and tell everyone that...
i'm done.

your love is better than wine...

Mish is gone tonight.
again.
she's enjoying the bachelorette party her good friends have given her.
they've been at it this whole weekend.
i miss her.
i can't wait until she gets back.
i won't see her until tomorrow.
i'm on my own tonight.
i think i'll go buy a cd.
maybe read.
or work on my finals for school.
my goal is to finish up by tuesday.
my college career is coming to a close.
amazing.
derek webb writes some pretty good songs now and again.
i'm listening to one right now.
something about your love being better than wine.
it's a beautiful song.
something about it makes me feel good.
it's refreshing.
it's freeing.
it lets me forget about any doubts or fears that might be hanging around in the back of my head.
just go listen to it.

So here's the deal. I'm reading this book called knowing God by J I Packer. At the end of one of the chapters he closes with this statement.

"The Christmas spirit does not shine out in the Christian snob. For the Christmas spirit is the spirit of those, like their Master, live their whole lives on the principle of making themselves poor - spending and being spent - to enrich their fellow humans, giving time, trouble, care and concern, to do good to others - and not just their own friends - in whatever way there seems need."

So how will you spend Christmas this year?

I feel as believers if we really wanted to have a Christmas service we would hang a sign on the front door of our church saying, "sorry, we are not meeting here tonight because we are out serving the poor and hungry."

I think someone may have blogged about this a while back but here are my top six favorite shows I have seen along with the top six I would hope to someday get to experience.

in no particular order...

best shows I've seen as of late:
1. Broken Social Scene w/Feist @ Gypsy Ballroom, Dallas, Tx
2. Arcade Fire @ Austin City Limits, Austin, Tx
3. Death Cab for Cutie @ Trees, Dallas, Tx (i had my elbows on the stage for this one)
4. Mutemath @ Gypsy Tea Room, Dallas, Tx
5. David Crowder Band w/Shawn McDonald and Robbie Seay Band @ The Door, Dallas, Tx
6. Switchfoot @ Stubbs, Austin, Tx

Shows i would like to see:

1. Switchfoot acoustic show @ Canes, San Diego, Ca
2. U2 @ ANYWHERE!
3. Ethan Durelle on the rooftop of Gachet Coffee Lounge, Dallas, Tx
4. I wouldn't mind stealing some jazz in Europe
5. If Sigur Ros did a Christmas show I think I'd probably go.
6. Arcade Fire in a smaller venue

I know I'm probably missing some shows but I'll blog about them later.

I had a professor once make the statement that all truth is God’s truth. I've never really thought about that before. I like it. on brent’s student ministry blog he posted a quote from rob bell’s new book about being careful to label things “Christian” because we can blindly consume things that we think might be safe and acceptable without really testing it. I think the statement that all truth is God’s truth really applies here. What i mean is that often times there are things we come across in this world that we as the church would label secular but the reality is that it may speak more of God's truth than anything we might assume to be "Christian". I love knowing that God is not limited to what we find at mardels or family christian book store.

so i was thinking that today would be a good day to write a blog but i just got my eyes dilated and i can't really see what i'm doing. pretty excited about wearing those goofy sunglasses around. the doctor gave me some drops to speed up the process of getting my eyes back to normal. he said it should take about an hour. three and a half hours later i still have no color to my eyes. just two big black dots. do i have to go out in the sun?

i picked up my tux for pam's wedding. wait...PAM!!!!!
like, my sister?
this october don't get caught staring at the sun because
it's going to be a beautiful day when love comes to town.
a sort of homecoming where the streets have no name.
i'll be pourin' out a "40" with or with out you on a one tree hill cuz
in a little while you'll be stuck in a moment and you can't get out
but it's even better than the real thing when two hearts beat as one.
better than peace on earth is the promenade of grace that will follow
i wish the best for pam and john on their wedding day.

so right now i am thinking...

that these flip-flops i am wearing really have some pop to them.

did someone say mafia queso...

last weekend nathan and i made a trip out to lubbock to visit some friends of ours, brad and craig, who are freshmen out at Texas Tech. really i just gotta say thanks to those guys for the incredible weekend and for allowing nathan and i to re-live our glory days or as nathan kept refering to as the "walk of shame." we sort of just let that part go.

but i had a blast. what with our attempt at getting some sleep while camping out in buffalo springs canyon, to frisbee golf on campus and watching the football team throttle sam houston jr. high, to just hanging out at sugar browns coffee shop watching brad and craig slam raspberry white chocolate mocha blended frappes before the dust storm of '05 blew us back to the dorms. some events that transpired this weekend will only be released with the directors cut which won't be out until next year. what's said in lubbock, stays in lubbock if you know what i mean.

but i hope the guys had fun. there really are some gems in lubbock. you just have to dig a little to find them.

good luck to all those who are now freshmen in college. don't skip class too much. only when you really need to. and trust me, there will be days when you absolutely "need" to.

honey dews, cantaloupes, and creating that first space...

I think the dust has settled down now or at least i would like to think it has. it's been a week now since we've moved michelle into her new apartment. the place looks great. much nicer than i would have thought we could have come up with but the opening of ikea couldn't have come at a better time. i think i have put together every piece of furniture they have to offer.

it's funny, in about a hundred days this place will be our place. what a reality check. it's the second time in my life now i've had the realization that i am treading on unfamiliar ground. the first time was sitting outside a restaurant in vancouver with mish just two days after asking her to marry me. i gotta be honest it's scary. but so wonderful all at the same time. i can't wait to be married to her. she's amazing.

fun part...
michelle and i often kid each other about how we work better as a team. we realized this a while back playing video games at main event. we both can get pretty competitive. (i know by looking at me you would say "no way!")

one of my favorite parts...
so michelle is this incredibly creative and talent individual. among many other things. but she's really good at what she does. michelle is currently working on a project doing some graphics for this guy who is making sort of a historical park in brownfield, tx.

cool part...
the guy needed some architectural type drawings of some of the elements in the park so mish recommended using me.

really cool part...
so tuesday morning michelle and i are sitting in this guys dining room discussing the park project and troubleshooting design problems. i get to dust of my architecture skills. michelle is using her graphic design skills. and we are working together. as a team. i'm sitting there thinking that this is probably one of the most incredible things that i have ever gotten to be apart of. it's so much fun getting to share in each others lives that way. and we are both getting paid for it.

the talent crashers...

I was in silent protest about going and seeing the movie the wedding crashers simply because i feel that ever since the wilson brothers have hooked up with vince vaughn they've become nothing more than fast-food actors. i think old vince is bring'em down.

however, last night fellowship became the ruling party and i hauled off with brent, nathan, and a handful of some guys in our ministry who just graduated high school and will be leaving for college within the next two weeks. we went out to dinner and then saw a late showing of the wedding crashers. ok, i admit, i laughed. there were some funny lines. but i am sticking to my guns when i say that vince vaughn is over-rated and that owen wilson needs to start writing with wes anderson again.

she left a tear on my shoulder...

today michelle and i went up to irving bible to watch one of her students get baptized. michelle was overjoyed as she watched ashlin make a her faith all the more public. michelle had been praying that God would show her some sort of tangible growth in her girls. she really wanted to see something before she left. michelle will be leaving the high school ministry at ibc at the end of august and it will be difficult for her to stay in touch with the girls she has been ministering to over the year. many of which she has grown very close to. especially the one who was baptized. not too long after michelle started praying ashlin made the decision to get baptized. i'm so excited for the both of them. i'm so glad michelle got to see some of the fruits of her labor but more than anything i am totally jacked that ashlin was baptized today.

So do I have to go the speed limit when I pray in my car?

Foot-travelers see the world a different way...

So I met Anne Lamott yesterday. Well, not really, but maybe it could have been her sister. You see, there is this creek that runs through our neighborhood and I noticed some cat tails growing in it. I decided to walk over and grab a few. The reason being (and i don't know if it really works) is that if you light the ends of them they burn like a candle and keep the bugs away. They smell nice too. So as I'm passing by the creek I notice this young woman perched on a railroad tie and leaning against the wooden fence of a neighbor's backyard. She had tucked herself away beside the creek for some shade and a smoke break. I said hi and walked on a little further down the creek to collect the cat tails. I grabbed a handful and passed by her again as I was leaving. This time she spoke up first and asked me my name. Her name was Renee, not Anne. She had blond dreadlocks, traveled on foot, and was an environmental activist going door-to-door in our neighbor asking for support. Needless to say, after a short conversation I ended up giving $15 to The Texas Campaign for the Environment. You can check them out at Texas Environment. The irony of the story is that during our nice discussion about protecting the environment I'm pulling up cat tails and she's smoking. Two steps forward one step back I guess.

i ran over a squirrel yesterday driving to class. kind of bummed me out.

well i've been living out of a backpack for the last two weeks now.
or at least it feels that way.
since i've been back from mexico i spent the last week trying to prioritize my to-do list while this week's focus is the execution and follow through of said to-do list.
things are rolling well but deadlines seem to be creeping up on me. establishing the coffee shop in the dungeon has been an encouraging process so far. although slow going at times the church staff has been so supportive. i still can't believe all this is actually happening.

preparing for re-entry...

i'm staring at this blog and i am thinking that its in desperate need of a face lift. my links are idle, some of my blog'em buddies have come and gone, the tunes i'm spinning have spun out of tune. lets face it, this blog is sort of boring.

but i'm back now after spending a week in mexico and i'm ready to roll with summer. for a good summary on our mission trip check out brent's blog. but let me say that even though this was my fifth trip to mexico it never gets old. a group of us had some extra time one day so we took the opportunity to visit the homes and families we built the houses for last year. i couldn't believe it but after a year had gone by we were greeted with hugs and smiles from people who hadn't forgotten us. they showed us the improvements they made on the houses and their expressions spoke volumes of the hope we helped build. one family had added onto their house and was now running a small store out of the front half. the reality of our work sank in and i'm thankful that God broke the monotony and refreshed my perspective once again of why we go and build houses in mexico.

MEXCIO '05

check out our new pet!

this thing has been hanging around ever since it found a nest in our gutter with eggs in it .

i'm in trouble...

i'm already going into this week feeling like it's friday. that's no good. especially when it's monday.
i'm already scratching off classes in my head that i don't need to go to.
i'm already leaving some books at home. walking to class with nothing but a pen, pad, and ipod.
i'm frequenting starbucks more often then not.
i'm checking out.
i'm done.
i'll have about three weeks of no school before i hit the books again for summer school.
i can't wait.
but i'm feeling go0d.
got some floor plans to draw up tonight. a meeting to schedule for tomorrow to present the floor plans.
got some reading to do. a little studying for upcoming exams. bring it!